Glad to hear it wasn't just me, but sorry to hear of your inconvienence. FM seems to have good prices, but they seem to fall down and shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to speedy order processing and shipping. If I owned or ran the company I would want product out the door ASAP as that would get the money in my bank quicker. I don't know, maybe there is a different business philosophy out there.....

On Monday 1/8 I ordered a Marble tang sight and a brick of .22 LR from Midway. Tracking indicates it will be in this afternoon. Thats pretty quick. Shipping on these items was $10+. Seems a little high, but great service. Also good service from Cabela's, Midsouth, and www.lockstock.com. Brownells will have items you can't find anywhere else.

Midway is a good company, and I order from them a lot, but ever since they switched from shipping included to shipping as a separate expense, I have found they are not the cheapest anymore. Actually, to be more accurate, they are the vendor of last resort for bulk items. Now for finding say a particular die set or some oddball part, Midway is great.

I find I can do better costs wise from Cabellas, Natchez or Wideners especially on bullets. Brass is usually cheaper from Starline direct (if you order enough at one go).

I find that what you have to do is find the item, say 230 grn FMJ's and then shop two or three of the providers including the shipping to find the best price.

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10mm and 357sig, the best things to come along since the 38 super!

jsflagstad,
I placed an order around the holidays to FM.I got the same story about how its busy around the holiday bla bla bla.On the bright side I did get my order around when they said I would get it.It took about a week.I was in no hurry and I saved quite a bit.They seem to be a big Lee dealer and thats what I was buying so it all worked out OK.If I was in a hurry though I would definitely buy from Midway or Natchez.Midsouth has been good also.It's hard to beat Berry's for bullets since shipping is included.

About the only two places I order gun stuff from are Midway and Natchez. Both are very good.

Natchez can get a little pricey sometimes on shipping. Ordered 4 double rifle cases and a scope and they charged me almost 50 bucks for shipping the rifle cases by ground, then they shipped the scope seperately and charge me 20 to ship it. Haven't ordered from them since and let them know why I was taking my business elsewhere. They gave me a refund on the shipping of the scope, but made no excuses on the high shipping of the cases.

Now most of my stuff comes from Midway, with the exception of Cabelas and Brownells.

I can agree with Midway having good service. I do believe that Midsouth has better prices on some things, they just don't carry as much stuff as Midway. I've used Natchez as well with good results, as well as Wideners, and Graf & Son, who helped me find a special forming die at one of thier competitive suppliers once!

I'm a very big fan of Midway but recently, in addition to what I determined were higher shipping costs, it seems everything I've bought was significantly cheaper at Natchez, Cole Distributing or one of the other vendors.

I really like Midway's fast service but I can easily save enough to cover the shipping someplace else if I'm patient, watch for sales etc. Some of the stuff Midway lists on sale really isn't much of a deal at all lately compared to the competition.

I was shocked when I found FM was still doing business. I found them on eBay, and wasn't so surprised that it seems a very large portion of their business is through auction & buy-it-now listings. Then again, I wasn't so surprised they used eBay as their main vehicle. I ordered some items from their pricelist 20 years ago, responding to a 1" ad in gun magazines.

At that time, all mail order companies had a 6-8week shipping disclaimer. F&M Shooting Supply (name at that time) was the only company I've come across in my life that actually took the full 8 weeks to ship something. I would understand if it was surface-mailed from Sydney, AU; but come on, USPS domestic ground? Then, I got stuff that looked suspiciously used, but they passed that off as warehousing scuffs and routine business processes outside of their control, including the greasy finger smears (QC inspection), tooling marks (factory testing), and sliced tape on product box (postal inspection). Right.

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